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Meryl Gordon on the Astor Trial: "The New Astor Court"

As a parade of New York society leaders took the stand over the past three months, the jury in the Brooke Astor trial heard jaw-dropping testimony about Astor's relationship with her son, co-defendant Anthony Marshall, and his wife, Charlene.

But as *Vanity Fair'*s Meryl Gordon found out, the real pyrotechnics were offstage. While talking to key players—including Charlene, Annette de la Renta, Astor's grandsons, and a dismissed juror—Gordon uncovered an Oedipal plot twist that recasts the dynamics of this epic courtroom drama. Her story, "The New Astor Court," provides a definitive account of a trial that left the court stenographer saying, "I feel like I'm in a Jackie Collins novel."Prosecutors say the 85-year-old Marshall and an estate-planning lawyer, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., tricked Astor, who died two years ago, at 105, into making changes to her will when she was in no condition to understand what was going on. Gordon, whose book Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach has been cited numerous times during the proceedings, writes:

The thrice-married Brooke Astor was on trial as well as her son, with her bon mots and insults faithfully quoted in the witness stand by a parade of friends and retainers.

Was Brooke a controlling, bad mother who constantly belittled her only child? Or was she really someone who made nasty remarks about her daughter-in-law ("She had no class and no neck," Brooke said to her butler Christopher Ely) but sought to make amends at the end of her life by giving the couple $60 million that had previously been designated to go to charity? Or was she a terrified, paranoid woman tormented by Alzheimer's, fearful that a man was hiding in her house and planning to kill her, repeatedly telling her doctor, "I'm gaga," whose son took advantage of her pathetic state?

Did Tony frighten his mother into selling her beloved Childe Hassam flags painting (and pocket a $2 million commission), reward himself with an unauthorized $1.4 million pay raise from her accounts, put his boat captain on his mother's payroll, and drag her down a hall against her wishes to coerce her into changing her will? Or were these all trumped-up, malicious accusations, as Tony's lawyers claimed?

For the article, Gordon spoke with Kim Sager, a juror who was summarily dismissed from the trial midway through. (Though no reason was given by the judge, Sager thinks it had something to do with her recounting to another juror a conversation she'd had with her 101-year-old grandmother, who, like Astor, had been in decaying mental health.) Sager, a former creative director for Sesame Workshop, says she was leaning toward voting to convict Marshall on several counts.

"I was slightly enthralled by Brooke Astor," she told me over drinks at the Four Seasons restaurant, adding that she had come to feel "protective" of the grande dame. "It's not that I thought Tony was guilty from the get-go. I knew I needed to keep an open mind. But I kept looking for a piece of information I'd hear that would make him seem less guilty."

But the biggest surprise of the trial thus far has not yet been reported. Gordon uncovered that Marshall may be legally obligated to bequeath one-third of his estate (as much as $20 million) to his sons, Philip and Alec, who testified against him. The sons were unaware of the possibility until Gordon notified them.

For his part, Marshall, an elderly man with serious health problems (he's had two heart attacks and open-heart surgery), might seem like an obvious candidate to settle. But a prosecutor says there was "never even a feeler" about trying to reach a deal in the case. And Charlene backs that up. "He did not do one thing wrong," she says. "He did zero wrong. We believe in the truth with a capital T."

But it is still possible that Marshall will spend the rest of his life in a courtroom, if not some time in a jail cell. A probate fight over Astor's $185 million estate is scheduled to resume in Westchester Surrogate's Court one week after the criminal trial is completed.

"Our lives have been consumed by this," Charlene says. "All I do is cry and pray."

To read "The New Astor Court," pick up a copy of the September issue of Vanity Fair, available on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles now and nationally on August 11.

Photograph Left, by Lily Lane/Polaris, Right by Marc A. Hermann/Polaris.